A Day in the Life: Fall Edition

1:55 AM - Wake up to hear crying. Is it time to wake up already? Gah. Am tired. I pop my basal thermometer into mouth to take my temp and glace at the clock.  Wah? It's the middle of the night. Random. I let Bella fuss for a few minutes to see if she'll go back to see.  No go. I decide to go in and nurse her and she goes back to sleep in two minutes.
4 AM - Random bleeting cry.  Why? WHY? This time, however, she falls back to sleep in a few minutes without intervention. I do, too...eventually.

5:55 AM - She's up and this time for good. I bring her to our room and nurse her.

6:25 AM - After Bella is done nursing she does her usual crawl all over us in the bed.  During this crawl-a-palooza, she bumps her head on the bedside table.  Tears ensue.  Wheee! Top o' the morning to me! Poor baby. I take her out of the bedroom to soothe her as it's Husband's day to sleep in.  She's not soothing easily so I find the mailing label stickers in the office and give her one to stop the crying.  The child does not discriminate between stickers.  If it sticks, it's a sticker. A side benefit to the crying (at least for Bella) is that she needed me to use the snot sucker thing.  She LOOOOOVES it now.  Asks for it all the time. Yes. Weird. I change her diaper and then we go to the bathroom to brush our teeth.

6:45 - We head down to the basement to feed the cats (who are now in a state of meow-meow panic) and start a new load of laundry.  Bella wanted to wear the boots and hat and who am I to stand in the way of fashion?

7:00 - We head back upstairs and I am reminded that we are out of milk.  Since that would leave me coffee-less and oatmeal-less, I decide that we need to go to the store even though it's not yet light out.  I throw some clothes on and walk to the local grocery store.

7:05 AM - Good morning, Minneapolis! Bella greats her buddy, Elvis the Cow, at the grocery store and I get milk (not provided by Elvis).  I also buy a latte to reward myself for having to get up at 1-something-AM.  By the time we get home, the sun is out.

7:40 - Dada! Happiness abounds.

Do not let Husband's outfit food you. He does not, in fact, work for Target. He would be of no use should you need to know where the dog food or tennis balls are located.


7:45 - Breakfast.  Bella eats Kashi Heart to Heart cereal (worst name for a cereal evah! ick!), part of a banana, and 1/2 a pint of strawberries (not even kidding on that amount). I have strawberries, the other part of the banana, and my latte.  Husband has Heart to Heart cereal, too.  Husband leaves for work.

8:15 AM - Post-breakfast kitchen things: Putting away dishes, admiring one's reflection in pot lids, and watching the recycling man.

8:30 AM - "Mama! Draw! Draw! Draw, Mama! Mama? Draw!"

9:00 AM - Decide to go for a run now to get it out of the way for the day and to get Bella distracted since she has started her request for milk/nap already.  As I'm untangling the cord on my headphones, I let Bella play with my iPod since she likes to pretend it's a phone.  Once the cord is finally untangled I look for the iPod to take it back and - lo and behold - it's gone.  I spend the next 20 minutes looking for it to no avail.  Oh, life with a toddler. I imagine my iPod must be lost and gone forever. This is what I get for being distracted for a minute.

9:20 AM - As I'm putting my shoes on and taking pictures, I notice something funny happening with my arm muscles.

WTH? When did that man arm come about? Is it time to start tanning and become the next cover girl for Muscle & Fitness? I am both disturbed and impressed at my guns.

9:40 AM - After the first mile I notice someone is slumping down in the stroller and getting dangerously close to falling asleep.  I pluck her out and we walk the Stone Arch Bridge, taking time to admire the falls.

Once we get to the other side of the river, we play in the park and admire the views.  Then I plop her back in the stroller and run the last mile.

10 AM - We get home and Bella shows off her new taking-off-her-shoes skillz (a work in progress) before we head upstairs for her nap.

10:15 AM - Bella goes down without a problem and I take a shower and then try to decide what to do.  The how-to-spend-naptime question always paralyzes me and I looked at dishes, laundry, and other to-dos before deciding to tackle a couple small tasks (make bed, answer a couple semi-pressing emails) and then I spend the rest of the time working on my blog.  I also eat a slice of cold cheese pizza in there and get a stomach-ache (I'll have you know that nothing was learned).  Oh! And I find the missing iPod in a tiny black boot on the landing.  Of course! Should have looked there first.

 

11:40 AM - She's up and I have my usual moment of sadness.  Nooooo. I heart naptime.  I mean, I heart my baby more, but naptime? It's the shiz. I got upstairs to get her and nurse her.

12:00 PM -We go back to the living room and Bella is distracted enough with her drawing to let me get the dishes done.  Chores on baby-time?  WIN! I also get my meal planning & grocery listing complete.  And I threw that Meyer's basil-scented hand soap picture in there because it's my new fav.

12:30 - Lunch time.  We split a lentil & bean burrito with bell peppers, cooked apples and Bella also has some yogurt.

1:00 pm - Now is the time that I'm ready for my nap, but alas Mary Poppins was not free today. We hang out in her nursery and I stuff her diapers, clean her room and then lay on the floor for a pseudo-nap while B does some reading on her own for 10 very short minutes.

1:30 PM - Joint book reading.

2:00 pm - I lazily start getting us ready to go to the co-op for some groceries and Bella requested that we do her hair first.  She loves trying on all her hair accessories, but isn't interested in actually wearing any of them for more than 2 seconds.  We also put them all in my hair, which yielded gorgeous results. 

3:00 pm - At the co-op.  Bella is doing her new thing in this picture.  If we ask her where anyone is (Dada, cousin, Toonses, etc), she will turn her hands up and lift her shoulders and repeat that person's name in a question voice.  I can't tell you how awesome this is.  We aren't totally sure where she picked this up.  Maybe one of us does it unconsciously?

 4:00 pm - We squeeze in a park visit before dinner. I am loving this weather so much that I have inappropriate thoughts about it.  Like, I want to french kiss it, it's so fabulous.

5:00 PM - Dada calls to say he has arrived home and he meets us halfway between the park and home.

5:15 PM - I make dinner with Bella clinging to my legs.  This is my least favorite part of the day.  I look forward to cooking in 2020 when there will not be any cling-ons to deal with at dinnertime.  The dinner is curried egg salad on toasted bread and a mixed greens salad with avocado, grapefruit, & apple in a citrus vinaigrette.

6:00 - Husband has to leave for a boring evening obligation and I start to get ready to put Bella to bed.  She is already begging for milk and being all floppy.  We chill out in her room for a bit, then do her routine and she is out like a light.

6:30 - I slip into something more comfortable - pants made of the fabric of our life, naturally - and take care of some chores. Then I do some computer stuff and eat dessert #1 (leftovers Husband brought home from a dinner at Cheesecake Factory).

 

9:00 PM - Husband gets home and we head upstairs.  I check on Bella and she's soundly sleeping.  Husband and I eat dessert #2 (Preacher Cookies) and I read a book while Husband answers emails. We are sleeping by 9:30.  And I want you all to know that I always feel creepy writing this last part. Cause I feel like I need to make a joke about either having or not having sex and that's just creepy and maybe you might think that we did have sex anyway whether I write it or not and CREEPY! But you probably don't think that at all, and DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM? Murky area, yo! Anyway. We just went to sleep.  For reals.

THE END!